The Next Generation
by iflip4dolphins
Summary: The world may be saved, but our heroes now have an entirely different and far more difficult task ahead of them - raising their children. A series of connected oneshots based off of the children and their adventures. Includes characters from TAY. 3: "When we get married, let's never have kids."
1. Siblings

_Disclaimer: If I owned it, the epilogue would NOT have gone the way it did! _

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**Siblings**

Cuore counted the steps silently as she followed Rydia up the flights of stairs. The numbers were a soothing counterpart to the unsettling meeting that she had just been through. Her new relation, she supposed he was, had been unwilling to speak to her, far more interested in the tome that was propped open in his lap, and when introductions had been made, he had given her a look that she had been unable to decipher, but had elicited a disapproving sound from Rydia. "Another sister," he had muttered, glaring at her. "She better not be as annoying as Arya," the boy had continued.

"We are not related by blood," Cuore had felt compelled to point out. "Siblings are people born to the same mother and father. I have neither."

Takeshi had just stared at her for a long moment before returning his eyes to his book. Evidently deeming it a useless task to attempt to speak to her youngest son any longer, Rydia had gently steered her out of the library and had led her up flights of stairs. Now, when Rydia stopped at a cracked door, Cuore nearly bumped into her legs, and the Maenad grabbed at the skirt of Rydia's dress to steady herself. "I was off balance," she explained when Rydia glanced down at her. The woman smiled.

"Don't worry," she reassured Cuore before knocking once on the door and causing it to swing inwards. "Arya?"

The resulting silence lasted long enough for Rydia to sigh and step into the room. Cuore hurried after her, not wishing to lose her grip on the soft skirt. It was surprisingly comforting. Rydia looked up; Cuore followed suit, craning her neck to peer into the shadowy rafters of the room. It was unusual architecture, Cuore noted. It almost appeared as though the wooden beams had been placed there post the room's creation. Odd.

Something shifted and Cuore caught a glimpse of silver. "Arya," Rydia repeated. "Come down from there, please."

This time, the silence lasted for approximately five point three seconds before a loud, irritated sigh came from the rafters and a girl fell from the ceiling, her torso swinging as her knees hooked around a beam. Long, silver hair fell behind her and came close to Cuore's height. "What?" the girl wanted to know, eyes flicking from Rydia to Cuore as Cuore shifted. "Who's that?"

"Cuore, this is Arya." Cuore did not recognize the tone of voice that Rydia was using, but Arya's quick glare towards her mother told her that it probably was not good. "Arya, Cuore."

"You are angry," Cuore noted. "Why?"

Blue eyes narrowed as Arya inspected Cuore. "You look like my mother."

"The coloring of our hair is different, as is our height and –"

"No, you look like my mother," Arya repeated, cutting Cuore off.

Cuore frowned. "This angers you?" she ventured.

"No." Arya glanced at Rydia for a moment before returning her attention to Cuore. She waited for Arya to continue, but when it became clear that the girl would not speak, Cuore took it upon herself to ask a question that had been bothering her.

"Why are you upside down?"

"Why_ aren't_ you upside down?" Arya countered swiftly.

"There is no logic to your actions."

"Does there need to be?"

"Logic is essential in all aspects of life."

Arya's lips twisted and she drew herself back up into the rafters before dropping to land on her feet in front of Cuore. She let her head fall, for though she still had to look up to look Arya in the face, the difference in height was nowhere near as vast now that the older girl was standing on the floor where she belonged. Though Arya's eyes were on her, she addressed her mother when she spoke. Her voice was not as tight as it had been before, and Cuore wondered at the change. "It's not fair. You can bring home a lost child, but I can't bring back a baby Chocobo? There's definitely a double standard here."

Rydia chuckled softly. "One of the many privileges of being a mother."

"I am not lost," Cuore pointed out. "This is the fourth floor of Eblan castle, presumably your room, and there are eighty two steps leading from the library to here."

Arya stared at her. "I can't believe you counted all of those."

Unsure if the statement required a response, Cuore waited to see if Arya expected one. When Arya did nothing but look at her, Cuore peered around the older girl to get a better look at her dwelling – and was shocked. The disorganization was almost painful to look at. She scooted past Arya and went over to the desk, climbing up on the chair so that she could fix the contents of the desk. "Hey!" Arya yelped, rushing over to her and pulling a sheaf of papers out of her hands. "What are you doing?"

"It's disorganized. There is too much chaos!"

"It's _organized _chaos!" Arya protested, trying to stand between her and the desk.

Cuore frowned. "Impossible."

"What do you mean, impossible? Hey, put that down! I'm in the middle of reading that!"

She looked at the book that she had managed to snatch off of the desk, its spine cracked from laying open and upside down on the wood, closed it, and set it back down. Arya groaned. "Chaos is, by nature, disorganized."

"Well, mine isn't. Go away before you mess it up even more."

With a huff, Arya picked up the book and reopened it, flipping through the pages as she searched for the pages it had previously been opened at. Wondering if she could fix the chaos while Arya was distracted, Cuore reached past the girl only to be stopped by Arya's hand snatching her wrist, albeit lightly. "Go away." She let go of her wrist. When Cuore didn't move, blue eyes glared at her from over the top of the book.

"Come on, Cuore," Rydia said softly, placing one hand on Cuore's shoulder. Cuore started; she hadn't realized that the woman had come over to her. Trying to ignore the disorganization, the Maenad slid off of the chair, noting the look that Rydia gave her eldest child and filing it away later for contemplation. "Arya."

She didn't look up, but her shoulders sagged. "I know, I know," the girl muttered. "We'll talk later."

Rydia touched Arya's shoulder gently. The silver-haired girl stiffened beneath her mother's touch. Cuore watched, wide-eyed, as Rydia sighed and let her hand fall from her daughter's shoulder. "I'll see you at dinner," she murmured before steering Cuore from the room and closing the door behind them. The last Cuore saw of the girl was a flash of silver as she leapt back up into the rafters just before the door shut completely.

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_A/N: Yeah, it's at the bottom this time. Why? Because this isn't a oneshot - or rather, it isn't a single oneshot. Welcome to my series of connected oneshots! As you can see, this is post-TAY, but not exactly canon. Because canon is broken. I'm fixing your game for you, Squeenix. You're welcome._

_Anyway, I have a LOT of ideas for this story! Be warned - the oneshots aren't going to be in order, so I'll let you know roughly when, chronologically, each takes place. The focus of these oneshots will be all of the children, but there will be a particular focus on the family Edge and Rydia have here. I hope you enjoyed the first installment, and I look forward to writing more of it! _

_(Also, HUGE thanks to Mythweaver, to whom I owe the use of the names Takeshi and Arya, and thanks to both Mythweaver and Moonclaw, whose interpretation of Cuore I am using, and whose headcanons that have been put into fic will be used. Because they are awesome. Thank you!)_


	2. Origami

_Disclaimer: Nothing's changed since the last chapter. _

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**Origami**

"What purpose do these things have?"

Tsukinowa glanced over at the curious child even as he smoothed down the crease in the origami paper. Cuore had been watching him for some time now, long enough for the table to become littered with paper cranes of varying colors and sizes. "They don't have one," he replied casually, completing the crane he was working on without glancing back at the paper and handing it to Cuore with a dramatic flourish. She stared at the creation for a long moment before carefully taking it from the palm of his hand.

"Fascinating," she murmured, turning the crane in her fingers. "Such a complex object created from a simple sheet of paper…"

Tsukinowa considered her for a moment. Neither of the other two Geraldine children had showed much of an interest in his little hobby – Arya had thought it was interesting until she'd learned that the result did nothing, and Takeshi just didn't care – but Cuore seemed to appreciate it in a way that nobody else had. "Would you like to learn?" he offered.

Cuore looked up at him, eyes wide. "Really?"

He grinned and took two pieces of paper from the stack on the table and slid one in front of her. "Just do what I do," he told her lightly. Cuore nodded seriously.

What followed was a half hour of instructions, both visual and verbal, and three battered cranes, courtesy of Cuore's determination to get the craft done correctly. "This is far more difficult than it appears," the child said at last, frowning at her line of crumply cranes.

Tsukinowa smiled and patted her on the head, mussing up her hair. She tried to bat away his hand; he chuckled and withdrew obediently. "Don't worry about it," he advised. "It takes a while to be able to get them as smooth as this." He gestured to his crane, a majestic creature of pale blue with gold trimmings.

"Folding paper at the correct angles should not be so difficult," Cuore insisted. "It's simple geometry."

"Practice makes perfect," he replied with a shrug. "But – tell you what – I'll teach you some of the easier origami forms. This one's nice, but not exactly the easiest."

"Origami?"

"The art of paper folding," Tsukinowa elaborated, grinning at the fact that Cuore didn't know the definition. It was nice to be able to one-up the little know-it-all, adorable though she might be.

"Oh." The child reached over and took another sheet of paper, placing it in front of him before taking another for herself. "I would like to learn," she announced. "The results are useless, but the process is fascinating."

He laughed, receiving an indignant look for his troubles. "All right, then let's start with boats. They float in water, you know, if you do them right."

Cuore looked at him. "Impossible," she said flatly. Tsukinowa tapped her nose impishly, much to indignation.

"Not so, little one," he teased. "Just watch and learn."

She scowled at him, but turned to her paper as he turned to his. "Paper does not float," she muttered rebelliously.

Fifteen minutes later, Tsukinowa sailed a fleet of little paper boats in a washbasin, and Cuore stared at them in obvious delight.

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_A/N: Just a cute little oneshot featuring Cuore and Tsukinowa! And yes, it's taken me a while to get this up. I've got lots of ideas for this story, and I wasn't sure which to write first. I finally chose this. Hope you enjoyed it!_


	3. Kids

_Disclaimer: I'm gonna ask for the rights for my birthday. _

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**Kids**

At seven years old, Ceodore Harvey knew a couple of things. One, girls were icky. Not his mom or his aunts, of course, but his sisters were definitely annoying. And he was pretty sure they had cooties.

He liked Ursula though. She was nice and pretty, and she was really smart.

But other than that, girls were icky.

But this one… this one was just _weird._ She was small, shorter than even his sisters, but she was also younger too, so that was probably why. Her short silver hair was pulled into really short pigtails that looked kind of like puffball spikes to him, and she was staring at him. No, not staring. Studying. Looking at him like his daddy frowned over letters.

He wasn't going to fidget. He wasn't going to fidget. He wasn't –

He fidgeted.

Arya's eyes narrowed at him and he knew that he'd done something very wrong. That was the only warning he got before she launched herself at him with a high-pitched war cry, slamming into his chest and knocking him to the ground. Ceodore gasped. "Ow!"

"Ha!" Arya crowed, kneeling on his lungs and pointing at his nose with one small finger. "I win!"

"Win what?" he demanded.

She looked at him like he was stupid. "Stupid," she told him. "You're slow. I thought you were gonna be hard to beat, but noooo."

The kid leaned in close to his face and grinned widely enough for him to see that she still had all her baby teeth. "You gotta be faster than that. You're gonna grow up slow _and _stupid and then you'll be stab-backed and die. Acause you're slow."

"Arya!"

Ceodore craned his neck back to see Ursula. Even upside-down she was pretty. Arya looked up at her. "Yeah?"

"Your parents are looking for you," the eight year old explained patiently. "Please get off of Ceodore?"

To his great relief, the kid nodded, but she didn't look like she wanted to. "Okay."

She hopped off of his chest and Ceodore sat up, glaring at her. "That hurt," he grumped. Arya rolled her eyes.

"You, get more better," she ordered, sticking her pointer finger into his cheek. "You hafta get me next time, got it? No more being slow for you!"

And with that, the girl raced out of his sight, nearly falling down as she turned the corner. Ursula walked over to him and offered him her hand. He took it eagerly and she helped to pull him to his feet. "When we get married, let's never have kids," Ceodore muttered. Ursula nodded.

"Never."

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_A/N: Little kid fun time! Okay, ages real quick - Arya's nearly four, Takeshi's a few months old, Ceodore's seven and a half, and Ursula's... eight. XD That's why there's not a lot of description or anything in here - Ceodore's all of seven and isn't the little observant borg-child that Cuore is, and therefore isn't going to be using all the big words and descriptions that she does. Hope you enjoyed this little piece! _


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